Big Ideas

Verdict: Tom Cruise is kind of impressive

There, I said it, he's impressive. Actually, more than that, he actually seems... human.

I'm exaggerating my shock a bit, of course. Did I really expect him to come act crazily, jump around the building and preach Scientology? Nope, not at all. I think I was clear on that yesterday.

To speak for myself and a few of the Yahoo's I talked to, I think that what we saw at noon on Tuesday was something a little bit shocking (and sort of US Weeklyish..): Tom Cruise is more than a little bit like us. He came across as an endearing, passionate, driven and pretty funny guy. Someone who professes to love working, is willing to hop on a plane to CES for an old friend (Terry) and who seems to genuinely understand the importance of other people to his success. Sure, it could all be an act, but you know what? Sometimes you find yourself really wanting to believe the movie and its message and today I wanted to believe.

You're not going to find a transcript or book report of the session here. But, here are a few things stuck out in my mind about the event:

• People really, really love Tom Cruise. People lined up very early for this event and there were more than enough cameras on hand. See for yourself on the ytomcruise Flickr tag.  (Other tags include: terrysemel, katieholmes and tomcruise)
• This was WAY better than the Guhvanator's visit, a previous Influential Speaker series event. Whereas that felt like it was just a stump speech aimed AT Yahoo's, this felt much more like a conversation. In fact, it seemed a bit like Tom (ok, so I'm not on a first name basis, but I'm getting tired of typing Tom Cruise out) wanted it to be less formal than it was. He managed to make the inevitable catcalls (someone really should have sold "I love you Tom!" t-shirts) part of the event, rather than interruptions.
• The event started about 90 minutes late. Why? Because he flew his plane up from L.A. and it got stuck in gnarly weather, apparently. What I appreciated though, was the fact that Terry came out on stage, apologized and explained the delay and acknowledged that this wasn't, "the greatest way to spend Yahoo resources". But he did it in such a way as to make it clear that we should see this, it just sucked that it ate up a bunch of our time, instead of hinting that everyone should get back to work. Subtle difference, but an important one to me.
• Tom's got a sense of humor, making fun of himself a few times, in particular his recent habit of jumping up on couches and chairs. And then he got up on a chair... (I told you to look at the pictures..)
• While the questions certainly weren't controversial in any way, there were some good ones. Questions about his views of how media and the Internet will play together, mobile devices, what drives him etc. Personally, I found the best one to be the question about how to interact with people on a personal level, but within a business context.
  • To paraphrase his response: There are basically 2 or 3 types of people that I've come into contact with: 1) The open and giving person who's willing to share and explain everything to me. If I'm curious about something, they'll take the time to help me learn about it and if I'm dumb about something, they'll be patient with me. 2) The person who tries to hide information, in order to maintain control. 3) The person who tries to hide information, because they ultimately don't really know much of anything.  

On the last point, obviously he prefers working with person #1. What I find interesting is that the line seems to basically be drawn between being open and being closed. Regardless of intent, being closed and trying to hoard information is a negative. I wholeheartedly agree with that, but I'm left wondering how many people really think that way. It's obviously not that simple, is it? Why, though, is it most people's default reaction to be closed when they're unsure? Wouldn't being more open in edge cases imply to others that you're trustworthy and giving? Maybe, from now on, when I have this debate with people, I can pull out the Tom Cruise card :)

On that note, I'll work in some openness here... Both during and after the event I felt a little nervous about my previous blog post. Not because I'd said anything that I thought was truly mean, but because I feared that my sense of humor might be confused with a lack of understanding about the man's basic humanity. Yes, it was just intended as something lighthearted and joking, directed more at the controlled nature of events like this than any specific person. But, my fear was/is that people might take it out of context and without actually asking me what I really meant, get upset about it.

When it comes down to it, this is what worries me about blogging. It's not a fear of being open and of being myself. The problem is that it's very hard to "be yourself" in just one post, or in one sentence. As I look across the "blogosphere" there are far too many instances where one statement was blown up into something totally unintended, just because someone chose to rant right away, without digging a little bit further. The answer, however, is not to run away and hide. My best option is to be open and let those willing to dig get to know me and trust that those intent upon ranting will look silly in the face of the sum total of my reputation (digital and otherwise). As Mr. Cruise said in Risky Business, "Sometimes you just have to say, 'What the fuck?!?'"

Tags: tom cruise, yahoo infuential speakers program, transparency, openness

You had me at hello..

Newsflash: Tom Cruise is speaking at Yahoo! tomorrow! That's right, Mr. Scientology is going to be hanging out in URL's, live and in-person.

Let's all hope that he shares a Yodel with us and that it looks a bit like this:

So, some people are expecting it to be a train wreck. Others are annoyed that Yahoo!'s paying someone [inviting someone] who seems kind of wacky/preachy/crazy to speak. Me? I expect that it'll be rather tame, rather scripted and perhaps surprisingly fun. The guy's an actor right? He gets paid the big bucks to entertain and although recently, he's been entertaining us with antics that aren't on the big screen, I'm pretty sure that a corporate speaking gig is a pretty routine event for him.

Especially since all of our questions have to be pre-submitted... Yup, that's right, us employees get to ask questions. BUT, we have to submit them ahead of time. It makes total sense, if I was organizing this, I'd set it up this way as well, in order to avoid people like me :)

But, just once, I'd love it if an event like this occurred and it was totally unscripted and off-the-cuff. Since I can't have that, I've decided that I'd at least like to put together some questions that I wish we could ask Maverick tomorrow.
(Of course, remember, these are just jokes and just my opinions, affiliated in no way with Yahoo! I do, however, blame/thank a few of my friends for inspiration..)

1. “Mr. Cruise, will you please stop being glib?”    
2. “Wow, you’re short in person. That’s all I had to say."
3. “Seriously dude, spill the beans. What’s it like to nail Katie Holmes?”
4. “Umm yeah, same question, except for Nicole Kidman..”    
5. “You're everyone's problem. That's because everytime you go [on] the air, you're unsafe. I don't like you because you're dangerous.”
6. “You still owe me a new couch Tom. You KNOW how I hate shoes on my couch!”  - e-mail from O. Winfrey
7. “Can you show us your e-meter?”
8. “So, who makes more money, you or the head of your church?”
9. “Were you upset that you didn’t get to star in Battlefield Earth?”
10. “Let’s be honest here. You’re nuts. Certifiable. What I’m trying to say really is, in your own words, ‘Help me help you!’”   
    

What would you ask if you had the chance?

Unedited, funny or serious, comment and I'll throw some of the good ones up into the list.

**Quick Update** As was mentioned in a comment, there was no payment for Tom Cruise's appearance - Terry mentioned it in his introductions. I'll update later with an actual post about the event, which was very interesting and fun.

Tags: tom cruise, yahoo! influential speakers program, scientology

Pretty much the coolest video ever..

Ok, so maybe not to all of you, but I found this hilarious: IFILM - Viral Videos: Bill Gates Goes to College -. 

I have a very tiny (read: huge) Napoleon Dynamite obsession.

It's flipping sweet!

The dream of the digital home

The Economist, as usual, does a great job of bringing us back to reality in its article on "The Digital Home" . Sure, it sounds great to be able to have everything networked and seamless in your home (and everywhere, really) and I have no doubt that it'll eventually become a reality, but I think that there are a lot of people who believe that it's going to happen sooner than it really will.

They make several points more eloquently than I could:

1. The average consumer doesn't care about this as much as those of us in the tech/media world believes. I liked the way that a consultant quoted in the article thinks about it, "...adoption is a function of the users' sense of crisis (ie, motivation to change)      outweighing their perceived pain of switching...".
2. The companies playing in the space tend to think like they're selling a solution to the customer, rather than the way customers actually buy - piecemeal.
   1. I buy a DVD player and later an Xbox and then maybe later, an MP3 player. I don't buy them  all at once or even planned as components that have to work together, they should just work together automatically. The caveat, I think, to this method of purchasing is that if any company benefits from it, it's Microsoft. IF I do care about buying along a set of standards, might as well make sure it works with my computer, which has a 95% chance of being MS based.
3. Vendors are refusing to make their systems interoperable. Some are talking a good game about how they want to, but so far, they've inevitably chosen to be proprietary about some part of the solution that they offer. They view it as a necessary part of their strategy, but their strategy backfires, b/c it F's the consumer and makes it altogether too complex to execute a "digital home".

Despite being a good discussion of some of the challenges facing this broad dream, the Economist does slip up on a couple things:

• As I understand it, Windows Media Center Edition is really taking off of late, to as much as 43% of retail computer sales
• Apple has a control problem. HP might distribute iTunes on their computers but their agreement to make an HP iPod fizzled out quickly. Competing with partners on hardware has to date, been a limiting factor in Apple's growth
• They don't explore the possibility that interoperability could expand the bottom lines of the involved players. If a likely scenario is that one winner dominates and owns the market, wouldn't most companies be better off cooperating and getting a piece of the potential pie, rather than none at all?